Newsmakers

Scott Handley : Jawger launch

Alumnus Scott Handley ‘94, founder of Jawger, a family-friendly social network for the privacy conscious, recently launched the network on the web and iOS. Jawger emphasizes personal and natural connections with its efforts to sustain a user’s private information. Handley argues that the current social media business model has been profitable due to its access to user information, but it has profited at the cost of user’s privacy as these social media platforms sell user information. Jawger’s social network consists of member subscriptions so that people may communicate while having piece of mind that their information will be kept private.

“Our personal lives are increasingly intertwined with the digital world of social networks and online services," says CEO Scott Handley in a recent press release. “We may be connected, but we share only a glimpse of our lives on current platforms; and for a good reason, our networks are large, which makes our communications more public, and while privacy settings may be used to limit our audience, it doesn’t stop social network providers from using our information to strengthen their profiles about us, target us with ads, and accumulate data that jeopardizes maintaining a private identity. As a father, that is concerning; there’s no safe place for my children to engage with family and friends online, capturing the world through their own eyes, and be included in the conversation without some corporation building a profile on them and risking their privacy.That’s not okay with me.”